Wormholes in spaceti teaching general relativity Michael S. Morris and Kip S. Thorne e and their use for interstellar travel: A tool for ‘Theoretical Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 (Received 16 March 1987; accepted for publication 17 July 1987) Rapid interstellar travel by means of spacetime wormholes is described in a way that is useful for teaching elementary general relativity. The description touches base with Carl Sagan's novel Contact, which, unlike most science fiction novels, treats such travel in a manner that accords with the best 1986 knowledge of the laws of physics. Many objections are given against the use of black holes or Schwarzschild wormholes for rapid interstellar travel. A new class of solutions of the Einstein field equations is presented, which describe wormholes that, in principle, could be traversed by human beings. It is essential in these solutions that the wormhole possess a throat at which there is no horizon; and this property, together with the Einstein field equations, places an ‘extreme constraint on the material that generates the wormhole's spacetime curvature: In the wormhole’s throat that material must possess a radial tension 7p with the enormous magnitude ‘To~ (pressure at the center of the most massive of neutron stars) x (20 km)?/(cireumference of throat)?. Moreover, this tension must exceed the material's density of mass-energy, poc’. No known material has this 79> oc” property, and such material would violate all the “energy conditions” that underlie some deeply cherished theorems in general relativity. However, itis not possible today to rule out firmly the existence of such material; and quantum field theory gives tantalizing hints that such material might, in fact, be possible. I INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY A, Black holes not usable for interstellar travel Science fiction stories, TV shows, and films often use black holes for rapid interstellar travel: Intrepid adventur- ers plunge into a black hole and find themselves almost immediately emerging at some distant location in our uni- verse or even in some other universe—much to the annoy ance of relativity afficionados who can marshal a long list of objections: (1) A black hole horizon is the surface separating the interior, trapped regions of the hole (those regions that cannot communicate with the external universe) from the external universe in which we live. At the horizon of a black hole of mass M, tidal gravitational forces (inhomo- geneities of gravity) produce enormous relative accelera- tions between the head and feet of an adventurer of height L, accelerations with magnitude ~L(2GM /c')~?~ (10 Earth gravities) x (L/1 m)x(M /10* solar masses)? (ee, e.g, Ref. 1, Sec. 32.6). Unless the hole is more mas- sive than 10* suns and thus has a horizon with circumfer- ence, 47GM /c?, which is larger than 10° km, the adven- turer will be killed by tidal gravity before even reaching the horizon. A hole so massive and large will not fit into most, science fiction scenarios. (2) A black hole horizon is a one-way “membrane” Things can fall in, but nothing can emerge.™"' Thus, two- way travel (which is often invoked) is forbidden; and even in one-way travel the object at the other end, from which the adventurer emerges, cannot be a black hole. It must be some other, even more bizzare object—for example, a white hole.” (3) All of the objects known as solutions to Einstein's equations that could exist at the other end (c.g., white holes) possess “past event horizons” or “antihorizons,” i.e. surfaces out of which things can emerge but down which nothing can go. Such antihorizons are known to be 395 Am.J. Phys. $6 (5), May 1988 highly unstable against small perturbations.° Ifan antihor- izon of mass M somehow were to form (eg., in the big, bang), a stray wave packet of light with arbitrarily small ‘energy, falling toward it (but never able to reach it) would become more and more blueshifted and more and more ‘energetic as it fall. By its exponentiating energy the wave packet would convert the antihorizon into a normal hori- zon inatime of (afew tens) x GM /c?~1sx (M /10" solar masses). This conversion, occurring within seconds after creation of the antihorizon, would seal off the antihorizon, forever thereafter, preventing any adventurer from ever emerging through it. (4) Although the Kerr metric that describes rotating black holes possesses, in its interior, pathways to other a- symptotically flat regions of spacetime (“tunnels through hyperspace” to other “universes” or to other regions of our ‘own universe),¢ those tunnels almost certainly do not oc- cur in nature: (a) The proof’ that, once a newborn rotating hole set- tles down into a time-independent state it must have the Kerr form, applies only to the spacetime region at and outside the hole’s horizon, not to the horizon’s interior. The physical mechanisms that enforce the Kerr form (horizon as boundary condition on exter- nal physies; flow of gravitational radiation into hori- zon and off to infinity) do not operate in the hole's interior. Thus there is no reason whatsoever to expect a stellar collapse that forms a Kerr hole to form also a Kerr interior with tunnels to other regions of space- time, (b) Even if Kerr tunnels were to form, they could not live for long: The Kerr tunnels possess “Cauchy hori- zons” that are known to be highly unstable against small perturbations": A wave packet of light, falling intoa Kerr black hole with interior tunnel will become more and more blueshifted and more and more ener- etic as it nears the Cauchy horizon; and the wave © 1988 American Association of Physics Teachers 395,packet's exponentiating energy presumably will cre- ate exponentially growing tidal gravitational fields that seal off the tunnel and convert it into a physical singularity. (We cannot be absolutely sure that this is the outcome, because this instability—by contrast with that of white hole antihorizons—has been ana- lyzed only to first order in perturbation theory. How- ever, all the evidence from first-order analyses and all physical intuition built up from other studies of non- linearly strong gravity points toward a sealing off of the tunnel.) Thusit is almost certain that the interiors of black holes actually possess not tunnels to other regions of spacetime but, rather, singularities of near- infinitely strong tidal gravitational fields, singularities, that would kill any human adventurer and that are described correctly not by general relativity but by the (as yet not fully understood) quantum theory of grav- ity.” (c) If Kerr tunnels were somehow to form and were somehow stabilized to prevent infalling fields and par- ticles from sealing them off, the tunnels would possess, ring-shaped singularities. If physics were totally clas- sical, and ifthe hole were sufficiently massive and suf- ficiently rapidly rotating, an adventurer would be able to pass unscathed through the center of such a ring singularity. However, quantum field theory predicts that these singularities by breaking down the vacuum should spew an intense flux of high-energy particles into the tunnel, almost certainly irradiating and kill- ing any adventurer who tries to pass through and also almost certainly sealing off the tunnel against all pas- sage.'° (This objection, but only this, is avoided in a solution to Einstein's equations constructed by Bar- deen."" Bardeen’s solution describes a spacetime that almost certainly could not occur naturally, but that cone might imagine an advanced civilization trying to build. In Bardeen’s spacetime, a peculiar stress-energy threading the tunnels keeps them singularity-free, but all the other dificulties of Kerr tunnels remain.) (d) Ifsomehow an adventurer were to pass unscathed through a Kerr tunnel and emerge into some distant region of our own universe, by adjusting slightly her trajectory through the tunnel (we adopt the spirit of Contact in which the protagonist and wormhole trav- eleris Dr. Ellie Arroway) she could emerge whenever she wishes: late in the evolution of the universe or, more interestingly, early enough to return to Earth and kill her own newborn mother (causality viola- tion). These objections make it seem exceedingly unlikely that black holes could ever be used by people or other intelligent beings for interstellar travel. B, Schwarzschild wormholes: not traversible ‘Wormholes provide an alternative conceivable method for rapid interstellar travel. Figure 1(a) shows, by means of an embedding diagram (discussed below), a wormhole that connects two different universes; Fig. 1(b) shows a ‘wormhole connecting two distant regions of our own uni- verse. Both wormboles are described by the same solution of the Einstein field equations. Only their topologies differ, and the Einstein field equations do not constrain the topol- ogy of a solution. Remarkably, wormboles as objects of study in math- 396 Am.J. Phys, Vol. $6, No. , May 1988 Sour universe 2-4 “throat of wormhole ~ other 7. sniverse region neor earth th Star Vega reason Fig. |. (a) Embedding diagram fora wormhole that connects two differ: ent universes. (b) Embedding diagram fora wormhole that connects two distant regions of our own universe. Bach diagram depicts the goometry of an equatorial (9= 2/2) slice through space at a specific moment of time (1 const). These embedding diagramsare derived qucklyin item (b) of Box2,and—inamore leisurely fashion—inSec. I] C, where they arealso discussed, This figure is adapted from Ref. 1, Fig. 31.5. ematical relativity predate black holes: Within one year after Einstein’s final formulation of his field equations, the Viennese physicist Ludwig Flamm recognized that the ‘Schwarzschild solution of Einstein’s field equations repre- sents a wormhole." Possible roles of the Schwarzschild and other wormholes in physics were speculated upon in the 1920s by Herman Weyl," in the 1930s by Einstein and Nathan Rosen, '® and in the 1950s by John Wheeler.'° All hopes that Schwarzschild wormholes might exist in the real universe and be used for rapid interstellar travel are dashed by a series of major objections: (1) Tidal gravitational forces at the throat of a Schwarzschild wormhole are of the same magnitude as at the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole: They are so large that, unless the wormhole’s mass exceeds 10* solar ‘masses so its throat circumference exceeds 10° km, any adventurer would be killed trying to pass through the throat (cf. Ref. 1, Sec. 32.6) (2) A Schwarzschild wormhole is actually dynamic, not static. As time passes, it expands from zero throat circum- ference (two disconnected universes) to a maximum cir- cumference, and then recontracts to zero circumference (the universes disconnect)."” This expansion and recon- traction is so rapid that even moving at the speed of light ‘one cannot pass all the way through the wormhole and into the other universe without being caught in the crunch of recontraction and killed by tidal gravity." (3) A Schwarzschild wormhole possesses a past horizon (“antihorizon”) which, like that of a white hole, is unsta- ble against small perturbations."* That instability enor- mously hastens the recontractive sealing off of the worm- hole, making it even more impossible to get through. M.S.Morrisand K.S. Thome 396